The present disclosure relates to an aqueous inkjet ink comprising a colorant, more typically a carbon black pigment, stabilized by a certain amphoteric polyurethane dispersant. The disclosure further relates to an ink set comprising this ink and to a method of printing with the ink set.
Inkjet printing is a non-impact printing process in which droplets of ink are deposited on a substrate, such as paper, to form the desired image. The droplets are ejected from a printhead in response to electrical signals generated by a microprocessor.
Most inkjet printers are equipped with an ink set comprising two or more different inks and are able to print black text and multicolor images. Typically, an ink set will comprise at least a cyan, magenta and yellow colored ink and a black ink (CMYK ink set).
For printing text, it is desirable for the black ink to have high optical density. For this purpose, a pigment or disperse dye is most advantageous, especially a carbon black pigment. A pigment colorant is not soluble in the ink vehicle and must be treated in order to cause it to remain dispersed and jet properly.
To affect their dispersion stability, pigments are commonly treated with dispersants, and a wide variety of such materials have been disclosed.
For CMYK ink sets comprising a pigmented black ink, it is known to print the black ink in an adjacent relationship with one or more of the colored inks to improve the print quality of the black ink when the one or more colored ink(s) are formulated with an ingredient that destabilizes the black pigment dispersion for improved black-to-color bleed control and thus improved print quality.
Despite the successful inkjet inks and print methods presently available, there is still a need for, and it is an objective of this disclosure to provide, inks and methods having even better print quality and jetting reliability.